This invention relates to a network system, which facilitates global interactions among a plurality of computers, and to techniques relevant thereto.
Recently, many users are in communication with each other in a shared field or space which is constructed within a logical space on a global network such as the Internet, i.e. an area accessible with network-connected computers of the users.
Such a shared field has a participation-based development property that many users participate in or join the shared field by using the respective computers and interact with each other in the shared field so that the shared field is developed. For example, the more the number of users participant in a shared field increases, the larger the scale of the shared field becomes. In addition, the more the number of computers on a global network increases, the larger the number of shared fields on the global network becomes.
Conventional management of shared field is generally carried out on a so-called “client-server type” network system, wherein computers operated by participant users are “clients”, and a “server” manages the shared field which the clients are accessible.
However, according to the conventional management on the above-mentioned network system, the shared field does not necessarily change in correspondence with, for example, intentions of users participating in the shared field. Therefore, the system cannot make sufficient use of the above-explained participation-based development property of shared field so that a communication scheme, which is effective in a shared field, often becomes ineffective in another shared field.
In a client-server type network system, free access of many users or many computers to a shared field causes a server to have an extremely large load; it is very difficult to solve the load by means of mere customization of communication tools.
Each shared field has various unique attributes, which are effective only in the shared field but are ineffective in other places, such as rules relating to participation only in the shared field and rules concerning behavior allowable only within the shared field. Because of the existence of the unique attributes, a user moving from one shared field to another shared field should further adapt to the attributes of the latter shared field; the user has a problem of burdensomeness.